Propeller blades, wings, a ship’s hull, a car panel. What do they all have in common? They are complex flowing surfaces that can be a challenge to model with polygons, alone. NURBS or solid modelers will offer a better workflow for these types of complex forms. Houdini (and others) can work wth NURBS surfaces which might make for a better plan than polygons in these cases.
Offering a beginner’s guide, 3D Tinkerer, Reda Borchardt shows how you can create complex forms with NURBS in Side FX Houdini, by building a propeller. NURBS modeling has its own set of tools. If you are used to working with polygons, they can be a little confusion at first. In some cases, it is easy to generate a cross section of curves than can be the frame for the NURBS “skin”.
